I’m a cheapass. I do the oddest things to save a few cents. Most of them center around utilities. I turn the heat down a couple degrees when it’s cold out and the AC up (or off if my wife doesn’t notice) when it’s hot. I turn lights off. I burn wood in the fireplace, which freezes every room in the house except the living room. I keep my tires properly inflated. I drive five miles out of my way to save 2 cents on a gallon of gas. I use those long-lasting lights. I knit my nose hair into sweaters. You know, common stuff.
So when one of my four computers (yeah, and at any given moment all four are most likely on. Maybe I should focus on that as a potential cost saving) died the other day I, diagnosed it as a hard drive failure. Because it was a PC the wife got from work (no, it’s not hot, they just give away their old ones), I didn’t have an OS.
Enter Linux and the open source (or as I like to call it “Sweet ass free”) movement. I picked up a cheap 320GB hard drive at Frys and was on my way to free OS paradise. Since I’m rockin’ a Pentium III with 128 MB of RAM, I chose Xubuntu as my Linux distro of choice.
I know nothing about Linux. Other than it’s free. And nifty. And Xubuntu supposedly runs great on crappy machines such as mine. But I’m told the Ubuntu based distros (like Xubuntu) are great for newbs like me because they are easy to install and use.
So I downloaded the latest version (Gutsy Gibbon or some other adjectived animal) , burned the image to a CD and plopped it in my drive ready for free OS bliss. Wrongo Commish. My machine took three hours to load the damn disc before I realized the error in my way. Yup, you guessed it, I’d downloaded the Live CD instead of the alternate install. Apparently the Live CD requires 192 MB of RAM. My cheap ass machine didn’t have that kind of firepower.
Try again. This time I went for the alternate CD. Blammo, I’m ready to rock freedom from Microsoft. I plop in the CD and go through the relatively easy, supposedly 20 minute process. 4 hours and multiple failures later and I’m still not rockin’ a new machine. The damn thing kept failing during the software install. As a last resort, I checked the CD for errors and lo and behold there were some!
So I downloaded again, burned and installed and was surprised as hell to see the new OS on my system in about a half hour, with minimal interaction on my part. But it wasn’t truly ready for my grubby fingers to play with – I had two hours worth of updates to install before the shiny new operating system was ready to try out.
Initial Impressions
Since I’m not a gamer, out-of-the-box I get all the apps I need – OpenOffice (for composing Barney hatemail), Firefox, GIMP, an image viewer, a CD burner and even some sweet games like a Tetris clone – and it’s free. It’s a cheap ass’ wet dream.
But I know there are problems ahead. I’d like to eventually get a wireless internet connection going and that doesn’t sound easy. I’d also like to get my old Creative Zen Jukebox Xtra (surprise, surprise, I got it three years after its prime for cheap) connected, and I’m guessing that’s not bloody likely. Transferring video from my video camera? Iffy at best. But we’ll get there. I’m already thinking about converting one (or both) of my other computers over to Linux and giving a big middle finger to Bill Gates. But we’ll see. For now, I’m happy with my cheapo computer and its new-found zippiness.
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